Returns is fuckin' great, and I loved it on the Wii -- even if the motion controls were occasionally a bit finicky. It struck a great balance in difficulty, where I died a million times the first run through but had virtually no trouble going back and acing levels because of how well the patterns were designed in hindsight. I should really fire it up again.

0

"We expected nothing, and you gave us everything." R.I.P. Super Best Friends Play

"Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it." - Eclipse Phase

I've been playing Destiny 2 on PC since its launch a couple weeks ago, and finally worked up the resolve and scheduling prowess to do the raid on Saturday night. My wife, a friend of ours and I have been forming a standard 3-man fireteam for a while, but hadn't really played with anybody else to form the requisite 6-man team. Blindly, we put out a call on our clan Discord for 3 more and wound up super pleasantly surprised. 2 of the other players had no knowledge of the raid (like us), but the last one to join was a blessed Sherpa.

Everyone was super nice and patient, which was good because HOLY FUCK I've never done anything like The Leviathan in a game before. Every encounter required split-second precision and coordination between the 6 of us. The Gauntlet, for example, required two runners to hurdle around a Double-Dare esque obstacle course while calling out instructions to the other four to change the course to keep them alive. Calus, the final boss, splits the team between a psychic nether-realm and his throne room, with each team member in the psychic place calling out symbols only they can see to inform a puzzle in the throne room (while fighting dozens of enemies). We wiped at least 5 times on each encounter, with just the final boss taking two hours. Each loss, however, we'd get a little farther and our communication got a little better.

It was exhausting and there is no way we would've figured it out without our guide, but we're all still excitedly talking about it days later. It's a testament to how good it was that my wife loved it, because she usually hates pressure and coordination in games. I like Destiny 2 a lot, but I LOVED the challenge and elation of the raid. Can't wait for more.

4

"Prepare to be emancipated, from your own inferior genes!"-Abradolf Lincler

I wanna try out Destiny 2. The first one was fun but I don't like to play with other people, so I just plowed through in six hours and was like "Man, that was lame considering they shelled out 500 million to make it". It was a shame, too, because I really enjoyed the combat and the aesthetic (and the story seemed dope, even if they were determined not to tell it).

Anyways, I'm doing some end of year lists already. My movie one is still waiting on Star Wars Ep 8 (though I've got my other four or five, if SW somehow doesn't take it) but I think my games list is sown up pretty tight. It's a pretty horror-heavy ensemble, horror taking the top spot in both lists (IT and RE7). The only question mark is Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, which I've been led to believe features incredible combat and an enthralling story about PTSD and schizophrenia in a Celtic battle-hardened woman--all of which is pretty up my alley. I've gotta pick it up and play it sometime before the years out.

Redoing Persona 5 since I never finished it, and I'm struck by how this kid is shunned in school for getting in legal trouble for assaulting an adult. In the schools I went to, that would make you the coolest kid in school.

I'm glad this game wasn't released as the true sequel in the west. It plays like a romhack that has a death counter instead of a lives counter. It would've ruined the Mario experience for children. And adults too.

I had to look up the solution to 3-4 after half an hour of getting nowhere. I was just trying to pick the right path. Turns out there's a row of kaizo blocks (hidden blocks not revealed until you hit them from underneath) that you have to run left under and make appear then go over them and continue on to the right. If you don't do that, the level loops infinitely.

Overall the level design is fantastic though, by which I mean it's sick, disgusting and meant to test your abilities as a SMB player along with your patience.

Apologies for the double post but I finished The Lost Levels last night....

Well, I completed World 8-4 which means I saved the Princess and had a party with her and the Toads I saved.

Then the game informs me there is a special challenge level waiting for me. I get one life (it doesn't know I'm save scumming shhh) and I start off small. I have not yet tried this challenge level. After having my nerves shot by 8-4 I wasn't about to subject myself to more torture.

Time to dive back into my ridiculously modded Fallout 4, where my wife is still alive and an NPC companion, my settlements build themselves a la sim city, and junk is weightless so I can loot to my heart's content.

So there's a whole 4 level world at the end of SMB 2. The levels aren't very difficult compared to the rest of the game. The last level seems to be a congratulations message as there are blocks arranged as kanji. I didn't look up what it said but I'm assuming it says Ya Ta Motherfucker!

Back to the interminable Monster Hunter 4U. Friggin 9 Star quests for the guildmarm are not easy. The monsters are not hard to kill but they're all being stalked by a Seregios. Having to fight one of those along with another monster isn't easy or fun. Dung bombs only do so much since Serge seems to be programmed to follow monsters when they move around to different spots on the map. My solution is to slay enough Seregiosesses to make an armor set, pump it up with defense via armor spheres and eat for dung bomb effectiveness.

I need a new keyboard. This one sucks so bad. It keeps on losing signal and means that whenever I'm playing Fallout or Skyrim on my PC it keeps pausing repeatedly and at random. While sometimes it'll work for hours at a time without fail, sometimes it can't manage 20 minutes without crapping out on me.

I started playing Fallout 4 again. I decided I would do a character focusing on strength, automatic weapons and brute force, then make him also a good natured helper. I still don't like the base building for F4 though, in a highly specific way that sometimes I'll really enjoy making a super detailed base for one settlement like Sanctuary, then resent the time and effort I have to spend in order to make the whole map filled with such settlements. I wish there was some way to make a very defensible functional base quickly while also having the scope for the kind of customisation it does have for more important places. I also super resent that the supply lines thing is gated behind the Local Leader perks, that's a stupid decision because nobody needs 6 Cha for anything.

I bought Dragon Age: Inquisition for my PS3 because I had a need to play an action-y game that doesn't cause the device playing it to lose connection every five seconds and make a noise like an overworked vacuum cleaner. I am...so far somewhat annoyed by it. The entire beginning to Leader of the Inquisition thing is so rushed and they don't explain anything about the premise beyond "OMG DEMONS". I picked an archer rogue to start with, and it's pretty unsatisfying to have to just hold down R2 and wait for the enemy to die. I also went to kill five sheep as part of a mini-quest in the first area (Hinterlands) and got immediately murdered by some guys none of my party could do more than 2 damage to. Good level design. I might restart as a warrior, as the game seems pretty focused on the PC being tanky.

Playing Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. Between this and re-reading Lord of the Rings, it feels like my two review threads will go without updates for a while.

I'm actually somewhat disappointed in Trails of Cold Steel, so far. It feels a little too stereotypically JRPG-ish compared to its predecessor, with a bunch of brightly-hair-colored high school students running around a military academy in short skirts. The story's still pretty good (though the characters, again, are not as good as in the first series), and the battle mechanics are still very familiar, but I can't help but be kinda cool on this one compared to Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, which I would put in the top three of the best JRPGs I've ever played, full stop. So this is still a good game, and if it finishes strong I may consider picking up the sequel, but still...kind of a shame.

I'm waiting for Rimworld to have its final update, then I'm gonna have a full playthrough of one game to make sure I get all the features in, then I'll review it. Spoiler alert: it's really good. Once I finish a playthrough of each civilization in Endless Space 2, I'll also have a review of that, which will also be pretty positive.